disorder of arousal; lack of awareness; impaired consciousness
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Classification
* also see sleep, drowsiness
Etiology
- bilateral impairment of cerebral hemisphere function
- failure of the brain stem reticular-activating system
- structural lesions
- supratentorial lesions
- encroaching on or compressing diencephalic structures such as the thalamus
- rapidly exapnding masses
- infratentorial lesions
- direct involvement or compression of the reticular activating system by an adjacent lesion (i.e. cerebellar mass)
- infarction
- hemorrhage
- demyelination
- infection
- neoplasm
- supratentorial lesions
- central pontine myelinolysis
- toxic & metabolic abnormalities
- most frequent cause of coma
- more likely to cause coma in a patient with previous brain injury
- multifocal involvement of the central nervous system
- status epilepticus, especially non-convulsive
- sagittal sinus thrombosis
Laboratory
- basic chemistry panel
- complete blood count (CBC)
- lumbar puncture/CSF analysis (after CT of the head)
- electroencephalography
Radiology
- computed tomography (CT) of the head
Differential diagnosis
- psychogenic unresponsiveness
- uncommon
- patient may appear unable to respond to environment despite normal function of the reticular activating system & cerebral hemispheres
- conversion disorder
- malingering
- fugue state
- catatonic schizophrenia
- severe depression
- abulia
- locked-in syndrome
- persistent vegetative state
Management
(also see coma)
- reversal of identifiable causes
- reduction of increased intracranial pressure
More general terms
More specific terms
- coma
- lethargy
- loss of consciousness (LOC)
- minimally conscious state
- obtundation
- persistent vegetative state
- stupor
Additional terms
- abulia
- altered state of consciousness
- arousal
- arousal symptom
- Glasgow coma scale (GCS)
- locked-in syndrome; cognitive-motor dissociation
- sleep
References
- ↑ Medical Knowledge Self Assessment Program (MKSAP) 11, American College of Physicians, Philadelphia 1998